When we made it to the northern tip it was time to drop the motors again as our destination was directly in-line against the wind. I do not feel comfortable enough tacking the boat across the banks as there are many really shallow spots. As it was we were sailing in 6-10 feet deep water as it was. Me and my dad both saw that there is a Port of Entry notation on Grand Cay. It was less time than Walker’s and on the way. We decided to stop there and try to check in. After we anchored, I had to put the motor back on the dinghy. I had decided that with the motor left on the dinghy while making off-shore crossings, the dinghy took a beating from the weight and the waves. This was the reason I cut my trip from St Augustine short after the night of seas against the dinghy.
I then made my way to shore and pulled up at the fuel dock and asked where the customs office is. They told me there was no customs office on the cay and I needed to go to Walker’s Cay. I went back to the boat and made ready to go to Walker’s Cay. As we were leaving the harbor, a couple from another cruising boat came rushing over in their dinghy and offered us three lobsters. They had been given a bunch of short lobster tails from local fishermen. It took about another hour or so to make it to Walker’s Cay. Walker’s Cay had at one time been a major sport fishing spot with a hotel and marina. The hotel and part of the marina were destroyed by Hurricane Floyd in 2004. It had not been rebuilt. The marina had definitely been built for sport fishing boats and not sailing catamarans with a 19.5 foot beam. I tied up on the sea wall in the entrance channel and took off to find the customs officer.
It turns out there are only a couple of people living on the island. The cruising guide indicated that it was the customs officer and a policeman. I saw two fishing men and a man on some sort of a working boat. The way I can describe the marina and grounds is the same as a ghost town in the western US. It appe
ared the hurricane came through, damaged the buildings and grounds and everyone just left. The hurricane buckled the concrete sidewalks and blew out windows on the buildings. The docks were still much intact. There was a houseboat that appeared blown up on the aircraft ramp that has been blocked up and someone is living in it. The cay also has an airstrip. This airstrip is still used for planes checking into the country and that is where the customs office is located. I met Mr. Barry Morris there and he was a pleasant customs officer and we worked through all of the documentation. I had to fill out a declaration form for the boat, a medical survey and declaration forms for all three of us. I then needed to run back down to the water and around the marina to have my parents sign the personal declaration forms. I then ran back up. I was not sure what time Barry worked to and he we needed to make our way back to Grand Cay with a setting sun. I then handed over the $150.00US for the fees and we were officially entered in the country.After I made my way back to the boat, I lowered the yellow flag and now fly the Bahamian Courtesy flag. We then headed back to Grand cay. I knew we weren’t going to make it back before sunset and I would need to rely on the chart plotter. There is track function that shows where you have traveled. I used that as a bread trail and followed that back as we needed to make our way around a shoal area that would only be a couple of feet deep as the tide was going out. We made it back in around 6:30 that evening and settled in for the evening. Unfortunately my mother cannot eat any fish at all, including shell fish. She is highly allergic and can have her throat swell up and not breathe. My dad and I split the three lobster tails for dinner that night. They were wonderful.
01/09/2009 Today we are heading for Moraine Cay. It is a privately owned island as many islands in the Bahamas are. Before we pulled anchor I went over and thanked the crew of Debi Doll for the lobsters. They are an older couple that have been traveling together for many years. They spent five years on the 38’ Irwin circumnavigating the Caribbean. They are now living ashore again, but come over and are spending three months in the Abacos. My dad and I went through the calendar this morning and determined that we only have one week to stay in the Abacos before heading south. As I meet these other cruisers that take real ti
me to stay and enjoy the different sites, islands and people, I have to laugh at the name of my boat No Rush. I am still trying to slow down and I still have not found the answer. I know I feel a lot less stressed now that I am in the Bahamas, but I still have a way to go to slowing down.We had a great sail that day all of the way to Moraine Cay. We were able to fly the spinnaker a good portion of the trip and she loves to go. It was a great ride. We had a pod of dolphins join us for about fifteen minutes. There were five of them playing all around the b
oat as we cruised along. I am sure they were saying “make this go faster so we can play in your wake”. They are beautiful creatures. We worked our way into the cove at Moraine Cay. It had complete protection around it due to the cay itself, a couple of small rocks and a reef that protected wave action from the Atlantic Ocean. It was a little bit of paradise. The owner has built a home on a couple of cottages on the cay. They are a simple, but charming design. As the evening went on, we had another great sunset.
01/10/2009 This morning after finished our jigsaw puzzle that we had been working on for the last three days, we had a good breakfast and went exploring on the cay. The beaches are beautiful. We went in at low tide and found tidal pools to look around in. We found 
some small fish, crustaceans and small crabs. After we made it back to the boat we had lunch set the main sail pulled the anchor and then the fun started. I was using only one motor, instead of two and it turned us to our left and we ran aground. I have usually been able to back the boat off of a grounding using both motors, but not this time. The good news was that it was a sandy bottom and low tide. We would not need to wait too long for the water to rise and float us off. I swam an anchor off of the stern and we winched it tight using the sailing winch and then took the dinghy with the main anchor and chain and set it off of the starboard bow to keep us from drifting into shallower water when the tide came in.While we were waiting for the tide my parents tested out the snorkelin
g gear in the shallow water. It wasn’t long and the anchor lines started to slack as the tide came in and the boat started to float again. My parents made it back on the boat and I went for a swim to collect the stern anchor. After I had it aboard, we started both engines this time, pulled the main anchor and set off Allens-Pensacola Cay. At one time, this was two cays, but a hurricane silted in between the two cays and makes for a nice protected cove.01/11/2009 Today I made this a lay-over day. I feel I have been rushing this trip much to much and I need to slow down. My dad and I worked on running the cables for the HAM radio and getting it all hooked up. My mother was in cleaning mode and worked on small areas of rust stains on the boat. Later in the afternoon my mother and I took off in the dinghy and toured the shoreline of the bay we stayed in. She is an excellent beach-comber. She found many shells and a couple of good looking smaller conch shells just buried under the sand.
Later that evening we made dinner. My mother made a rice salad dish that is a favorite of my dad’s and I cooked up some chicken for her and boiled shrimp for my dad and I. After the dished were done, my dad read his book and me and my mother played another game of cards. This is the best way I have found to stay awake until at least 10:00 so that I sleep until five or five-thirty. If I go to sleep early, then I am waking up that much earlier in middle of the night.
01/12/2009 We have decided to move on today. This is based on the weather reports coming in of a cold front with heavy winds rolling in Tuesday evening. We also need water. We have been doing pretty well with the fresh water. The three of us go through about 3 gallons of water a day per person. That is what has been typical since I have been on the boat since July. We headed south for Green Turtle Cay. There is a small town with several marinas that we should be able to get water, ice, fuel and dispose of our trash. It is a no to low wind day so we motored on. The Sea of Abaco was like a mirror today. We came across this area where the bottom had no grass and was sand only. The water was about 15 feet deep. The color was so clear and blue, I thought I was sailing in a swimming pool.
We made it to Green Turtle Cay and worked our way Blackwater Sound. The charts showed an anchorage there and there were also multiple marinas we expected that we could get the items we needed. I called Blackwater Sound Marina on the VHF and indicated we would like to get some water. The owner indicated that the water was for people staying in the marina, but he would sell us water at $.30/gallon. I tied up and he met us at the end of the dock. His name is Carol and is fifth generation Bahamian. His family came over after the American Revolutionary war. He had great stories of the activities he has done working for cruise ship companies throughout his life. It was taking a long time to fill the tank. I needed about sixty gallons. We checked the hose after about 40 gallons and found just a dribble coming out. It turned out that the electricity had gone out on the island and the water we put in our tanks was from his pressure tanks. Most of the water on the cay is from reverse-osmosis, which requires electricity to run the pumps. It gave us enough to make it onto the next town we come across. Since there was no electricity, we could not get any gas either.
We were going to anchor in the sound, but Carol recommended against it as t
he grass is very thick and there is no good holding. Major concern if the weather picks up. We then went and try to anchor just outside of the sound where there were a few other boats anchored. We tried for almost an hour and could not get the anchor to stick. We then headed north up the island to an area they call the Bluffs. There was good sand there and the anchoring was good. My concern was that if the wind shifted, if the anchor slipped, we could end up bashing against the cliffs. I was tired and frustrated after all of anchoring so I decided we would stay for a couple of hours. My mom and I took off in the dinghy for a little exploring and went up the other cove. There were many boats anchored there, but the boat was the same problem wit
h grass. After our trip, I decided to go back to the entrance of Blackwater Sound and get the anchor to set. This would allow us easy access to the local town, New Plymouth, and get us away from the cliffs. After about another 45 minutes of trying to set the anchor, I put on my mask, snorkel and fins and dove on the anchor to set it in deep as my dad worked the controls to back down the anchor. We were finally set.We finally made it into a town. We had not walked on a road since we left Key Biscayne a week ago. We were on the hunt for the restaurant MacIntoshes. We found it out on the edge of town across from the cemetery. After a good dinner of cracked conch and fried grouper, we walked the street and checked out the store fronts on our way back to the boat.
01/13/2009 This morning we headed back into town to see it in the light of day. New Plymouth is a beautiful, well maintained and clean town. They have one lane concrete streets throughout the town. We stopped in to see a new church being built there. There were four churches, four grocery stores, two hardware stores and many restaurants.
We made it back to the boat about 12:00 and the wind picked up as the front that has been called for was starting to roll in. We left the anchorage in about 20 knits of wind with a reef tucked in the main sail. We sailed across the sea to the shore of Great Abaco Island and tacked south. With the shortened main and full jib we were making 8+ knots of boat speed and cruising along. My mother was having the time of her life with the boat moving as it was. She had never sailed for such a time in this kind of weather.
I had one shoal area I needed to cross, or go out a channel into the Atlantic Ocean, around Whale Cay and back in the channel on the south side of the cay. The books said you should not try the shoal area if you draw more than 4’ and I draw 3.3’. I expected it to be touch and go, luckily it was more go than touch. I dropped the main sail and set a motor along with the jib so as to slow down through the shoal area that was about 1 mile wide. My mother stood the watch on the front deck and did her best, and it was good enough, to get us through the area. We bumped the bottom one time in the chop and that was it. After we cleared, I set the main sail again and off we flew. We saw wind speeds of 30 knots at one point and No Rush just jumped along with the wind. We blew past a couple of monohulls on our way towards Marsh Harbor. We made it into the harbor around four o’clock and after moving the boat once, we settled into the anchorage for the night. I expect we will stay here for a couple of days.
No comments:
Post a Comment